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Senator McCain revealed this week that a meeting with President Bush would move from a scheduled appearance at the Phoenix convention center to a private residence. The Bush campaign presidency accommodated the request of the McCain campaign.

And so on: there is no one that McCain can talk to publicy. He has become sequestered in a retirement campaign where he eats bagged lunches with Senator Lieberman.

Such a move is blatant pandering to Jewish voters. But everyone is willing to pander to Jewish voters. A sociology professor I had once told me that. He added that the Ramones were Jewish and Perry Farrell was Jewish, presumably so is Senator McCain, and his opponent in the fall.

Danish suggested that since Obama is virtually a lock to win the presidency during an unpopular war and economic downturn, that Ms. Clinton should join the ticket to make history.

How about reaching across the aisle for Bobby Jindal? As long as you're going to win, why not tarnish the biggest rising star in Republican politics with the loser brush of the Democratic Party?

What went wrong in Hillary's campaign from inside the campaign. Michelle Cottle quotes:

"Harold Ickes's encyclopedic understanding of the proportional delegate system was never operationalized into a field plan. The campaign inexplicably wrote off many states entirely, allowing Obama to create the lead of 100+ delegates that he has today. Most notably, we claimed the race would be over by February 5, but didn't devote any resources to the smaller states that day and in the weeks that followed, allowing Obama to easily run up margins and delegate counts on the cheap--the delegate margin he will win by."

"There was financial mismanagement bordering on fraud. A candidate who raised more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the years had to pump in millions more of her own money to stave off bankruptcy."

"I don't think anybody in America doesn't think she can do the job. What they're dying for is to know a little bit more about her. And we were unable to present that side of her."

"If you look at this campaign as a 15- or 16-month gambit, the public turning point was the Philadelphia debate. Her non-answer on the driver's license issue. Again, it spoke to the character issue: The sense that she will say anything and do anything to get elected. It drove the Obama narrative of her home."

"Her dense and wonky speaking style was compounded by her speechwriting team's reporting to Policy Director Tanden rather than Communications Director Wolfson."

Speaking of Obama, the movement to convince his detractors that he is not a Muslim has approached critical mass. It is relatively clear Obama has never been a Muslim; it also seems clear that his father was once a Muslim, as was his stepfather. The problem I have with this Democratic gushing, "He's NOT a Muslim, GRRRRR" is the supposition that being a Muslim is such a terrible thing. If there was a presidential candidate devoting a page on his website to dispelling vicious rumors he was Jewish, I'd take offense pretty quickly. Of course we know why Obama supporters are doing this: they believe regular people are too dumb to not instinctively vote against a 'Muslim' candidate. That doesn't make it right.

McGinnis, facing backward because he was in the rear vehicle, tried to deflect the grenade, but it fell into the Humvee and lodged between the radios.

When he stood up to get ready to jump out of the vehicle, as he had been trained to do, McGinnis realized the other four soldiers in the Humvee did not know where the grenade had landed and did not have enough time to escape.

McGinnis, a native of Knox, Pa., threw his back against the radio mount, where the grenade was lodged, and smothered the explosive with his body. McGinnis was posthumously promoted to specialist, and he was awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest award for valor, while the Medal of Honor nomination was pending. The grenade exploded, hitting McGinnis on his sides and lower back, under his vest. He was killed instantly. The other four men survived.

In the annals of people dying who couldn't be saved, there is Chris Farley. His appetite for drugs, drink and women was insatiable. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time, and somehow seemed determined to expedite the process.

Here now we share Playboy's excerpt from the new oral history of Chris, The Chris Farley Show. Afterwards you can decide who killed him the most.

If Tina Fey had starred in Shopgirl instead of Angela Chase, it might not have seemed so creepy. Might.

This is a still from the upcoming Superbad sequel, Supersad, about what happens to Seth and Evan when they graduate from college, realize they no longer have any dreams or anything in common, and settle into a deep codependent depression based around poker playing after a meth-addicted McLovin dies of AIDS.

1. Does she look better than I look when she wakes up in the morning? The answer to this question is almost always yes.

2. Does she look like she has more fun than I've ever had, listens to better music I've never heard of, eats fattening food but always stops when she's full, and knows of secret cosmetics from off-brand companies located somewhere crazy that she buys for cheap?

With the advent of Facebook and Myspace, I think girl crushing has become even more common. Sometimes you'll go to someone's page and they're looking awesome: because their picture is actually Shannyn Shmoshmamon. I don't hate. They want to be like Shannyn Shmoshmamon, and that is because Shannyn is apparently a DJ, from Hawaii, a dancer, and looks better than they do when they wake up in the morning.

The Delia*s catalog is like Girl Crush 101 for the tweenagers.

I first learned to girl crush when I was an adolescent and realized that the girls in the Delia*s catalog were actually my age, wearing the clothes I probably had under a wet towel on my floor. My taste was not refined. I was pretty impressed just that they could actually make facial expressions in front of a camera. Every girl crush has a jumping-off point: for some, this might be ranking the girls of 90210. And that's okay too.

The New Zealand Herald backhands one of my personal favorite girl-crushes by calling her both old and in possession of a hot body; it's like, duh, everybody knows Sophia's got a banging body, you don't have to call her old. She looks like she spends equal parts of her time giggling, sipping wine, looking fabulous in clothes, watching great movies and eating fattening food. In the morning, that lady is still waking up looking really tremendous.

Brigitte, the world's most obvious girl crush

When you discover that Brigitte Bardot exists, and up until the point where you listen to her music, you are madly in love with her. You, I don't care if you're a girl or a boy, YOU ARE in love with Brigitte. Unless you've heard her music, you can ignore the PETA-like vibe and embrace her as she makes Contemptwatchable and shows up on absolutely everyone's social networking pages.

FD and TL: both anti-bra

Faye Dunaway might be my favorite girl crush. She has like four things in production on her IMDB, which also hits you with these gems: she is for some reason nicknamed "Miss Faye," she was married to the dude from J. Geils Band, and she has an Oscar. Because she knows she's a badass, I will forgive her for pulling an Alec Baldwin.

Anne Bancroft: woman, you'll be a girl crush soon.

Anne Bancroft: Method actor, which means that she had the capacity to work hard, which I lack; she got an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony; and, something which until three seconds ago was news to me, she wrote and directed a movie called Fatsowith Dom Deluise. Oh yeah, and she was married to Mel Brooks, which automatically means she was hilarious and a genius.

4. When you jet-set, take Virgin America, because as my dad pointed out recently, they are F'ing Southwest in the A. Then you too will be cute when you wake up, even if it's just on planes, and it will cost you about $260 roundtrip from and back from (uh, this is the one down side) Los Angeles, NYC, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco, and DC .

We asked frequent TR reader Devendra Banhart to contribute his recollections of dating the one known as Natalie Portman. He sent in the following.

What and Who I Will Do For My Career

by Devendra Banhart

I woke up yesterday with a splitting headache. Too much Burgundy, too much cocaine, and too much of her.

"Devendra! Devendra!" When I open my eyes I swear that Natalie was watching herself in The Professional. Ever since my publicist hooked me up with this lew (what gentiles like me call lame jews) I have been enduring a never ending stream of this bullshit.

"When did you lose your virginity?" she said, dancing on the bed. "Tell me and I'll tongue your balls."

"I'm still a virgin," I said. "I'm going to order some papayas."

"Get me the huge." 'Huge' in the Portman family parlance, she had informed me during our first meal, meant, 'the usual'. She reminded me of Anna Faris in Just Friends.

When we met, it seemed great.

We were halfway through a MOMA screening of Conrad Clark's eulogy for Beijing when Natalie whispered in my ear, "l can't tell any of these characters apart." This somehow seguewayed into a 40 minute argument about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. By the time she was going down on me in the bathroom closest to the Cy Twombly mural she felt we were closer than ever. Me, I wanted to refute her supposed concessions at Gaza and lecture her parents for hours.

chan marshall & me

Also, she has a tiny vagina. So tiny. Sounds great, right? But whenever it starts getting uncomfortable at all, she lets me know. Again, not a problem in itself, but instead of being like, slow down guy, she starts yelling, "Poopsikins! Poopsikins!" The first time she said it I was looking around for the camera. At least she's a vegan.

I used the money on a framed portrait of myself and gave it to her along with the feather of a peregrine falcon. I felt bad. I mean, it happens. You're interested in a girl and the newness of that, and then the eroticism fades. It doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a chance.

"Nathan Englander?" I said. "I think I'm going to have to send a frothy e-mail to the Harvard english department from whence you came. Plus, he's a lew like you. I'd really rather go see Junot Diaz at NYU."

"But Nathan Englander's funny," she said. "Wes and I used to read parts of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges aloud before bedtime."

"Mention another one of your ex boyfriends and I swear I'll give you a bloody eyeball, Queen Amidala."

"Let's just go and if it's bad, I'll just soak a chamois of llama skin with my juices and weave it into your hair, poopsikins," she said. I shuddered.

She spent most of the reading finding dumb things to look at on her laptop. She found an interview I'd done:

Well, I said to myself, "What's the title?" and I heard from myself, " Look in books, think... feel words, extract the words from the songs, condense the record into a word or a couple of words, etc". Then I said to the spirit of Krishna-Murti, "Whats the title?" and i heard, "Keep looking in all those places you told yourself to look, keep looking diligently, though it will not come from there, i will bring it to you if you keep looking in all the wrong places". And as I looked I began to hear, "I Am Cripple Crow, I Am Cripple Crow", so i was gonna call it, I Am Cripple Crow, but I thought it would look like I was saying... I, Devendra, am Cripple Crow, which I am not, Cripple Crowis the album, so I got rid of theI Am.

"That's fucking retarded," she whispered, "and I'm pretty sure Krishnamurti is still alive." I stormed out of the bookstore.

The next night, my boy Cabic comes over to play some xBox and braid my hair, and NP sits in the corner reading a magazine (I believe it was Highlights) and acting like she's doing me some big favor by letting me have my bromance.

Cabic is so weirded out he leaves after only two hours of Madden and I think she can sense that I'm frustrated, because when I come into the bedroom she's wearing the blonde wig from Closer and she has her mouth duct-taped shut. You tell me if you could resist. You can't. It's impossible.

While sex isn't everything, it is something. When it's not around you look to see if maybe it's on your computer. When it's lying in your bed about to say something completely insane about the motivation of the Israeli citizens building settlements on Palestinian land, you have to ask yourself: At what cost?

I promised myself that I'd break up with her this morning. I know exactly what to say.

The best part about dating an actress is that breaking up is an orgasm straight out of the Claude Levi-Strauss handbook. You can "represent" the "break-up" without having to really say a word.

You simply set up a situation unexpectedly similar to a moment they got dumped in one of their movies. Naturally this is easier if you happen to find yourself LTRing Billy Crudup, Jennifer Aniston, or Jim Krasinski. By the way Krasinski, if I have to read another interview where you talk about how much you love David Foster Wallace, I'm going to eat your spleen.

Since NP played the feature lew in The Diary of Anne Frank, my choice is fairly obvious. Yet before I have even gotten out of bed she's asking me if I ever had banana pancakes when I was growing up in Venezuela.

I finally can't control myself: "THERE WILL BE NO FUCKING BANANA PANCAKES," I scream. "And when you're from Long Island, I don't think you can call the U.S. 'The States.' Pretty sure that's just a bullshit affectation. You went to Solomon Schechter for Christ's sake."

"That hurts me a lot, D," she says.

"That's what she said," I said. "You watch The Office? No? I'm never good at this part."